


the kids are alright

by indecisivebehaviors



Series: Can't fight this feeling [4]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Found Family Bonding™, John Henry Lawrence Almost Punches A Cop, Multi, Sam LaRusso Knows Too Much, also featuring some poor nurse who does not get paid enough for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29482434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indecisivebehaviors/pseuds/indecisivebehaviors
Summary: Sam decides, as she drives to Miguel’s that morning, that she has had far too much time to herself to think about things.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Miguel Diaz & Robby Keene, Miguel Diaz/Samantha LaRusso, Robby Keene & Samantha LaRusso
Series: Can't fight this feeling [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200365
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	the kids are alright

Sam decides, as she drives to Miguel’s that morning, that she has had far too much time to herself to think about things.

Her mother had attempted to get some more information out of her about everything that night, again later when they’d gotten home, and right before she’d rushed out the door that morning. She felt kind of bad. She knew that her mother was only trying to look out for her, for all of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell her more than a few of the more basic details.

“By the time we got there, Dad had already taken care of Kreese, but he and Mr. Lawrence were hurt and we all had to go to the hospital. That’s it, that’s all that happened.” And really, that wasn’t actually a lie, all of that did actually happen, but her mother had looked at her like she didn’t believe her for a second. But, honestly, everything else? That wasn’t hers to talk about.

Her mom had more or less let it go the night before, and Sam knew she wouldn’t have the time to push her for more details that morning, wanting to go get Anthony from his sleepover herself(normally Anthony would just uber wherever he wanted to go, but there was no way mom with going to let him out of her sight now) and that gave her just enough time to get ready and rush out the door without too much fuss.

But, just because she wasn’t talking about it, doesn’t mean she wasn’t _thinking_ about it. And holy shit was she thinking about it.

Between the truce negotiations, the ambush at the house, her fight with Tory, Hawk’s spontaneous change of heart, her dad coming to drop mom off after the party and finding the house completely fucking trashed, him rushing off into the night, Miguel frantically texting her because _oh shit Sensei Lawrence is going to Cobra Kai_ , driving up to see her dad knock Kreese out with a single hit to the skull, Robby and Miguel freaking out, and then dad frantically trying to revive Mr. Lawrence on the mats of the dojo...

 _Holy fucking shit,_ a lot had happened yesterday. And all that had been _before_ the ambulance ever came.

She should, logically, be having more of a freak out than she currently is. Which isn’t to say that she isn’t freaking out about everything, because she absolutely is, but yesterday had also ended on a surprisingly higher note than she thinks any of them expected and she’s willing to take her victories where she can.

She tried to get some information out of Miguel herself after she’d gotten up that morning, mostly to make sure they hadn’t tried to kill each other overnight, but he hadn’t been very forthcoming with the details and after yesterday she hadn’t wanted to push the issue. They were fine. 

Probably.

When she pulls up to the complex she braces herself for the potential firefight she’s about to walk into and strides quickly over to his apartment, rapping her knuckles on the door.

She really doesn’t expect to hear Miguel call out, “Keene, can you go answer the door? It’s probably Sam!”

“Yeah, I got it!” She stares owlishly at the door when it opens, and there’s Robby, wearing a shirt that is very obviously Miguel’s, and a lopsided grin on his face, “Hey Sam.”

“Hi Robby. Is everything okay?” She tries to ask nonchalantly.

He only chuckles, “Yeah everything’s fine. C’mon, Diaz is taking his sweet time getting ready.”

She steps over the threshold and takes in the apartment. It’s definitely not the first time she’s been here but she’s always felt a little uncomfortable going over to other people’s homes, not always knowing what to do with herself. But Robby seems perfectly comfortable as he walks over to the fridge, “Do you want a soda or something?”

“Oh, yeah sure.” He walks over, handing her one. He has one tucked into the crook of his arm while he cracks open the other and flops down on the couch, “You might as well sit, he’s gonna be like an hour.”

Miguel calls out from down the hall, “I _will_ come out there and kick your ass, Keene!” But there’s no heat behind the threat.

Robby seems to know it too, cause he laughs, “Bite me, Diaz!”

The exchange is so jarring that she actually laughs too and joins Robby on the couch. She turns to look at him, “So... I take it that you both were fine last night?”

He shrugs, and the grin sobers into a small smile, “Yeah we talked some shit out,” takes a long sip of his drink, “it’s not like, 100% or anything, but I think we’ve more or less called a truce.”

“That’s...” She blinks surprised, before she feels her face split into a wide grin. She leans forward and wraps her arms around his neck, “That’s really great Robby.” He just laughs and hugs her back.

“Alright, alright break it up.” She quickly retracts back at the sound of Miguel’s voice but she’s surprised, again, to find that he doesn’t look upset, he’s just leaning against the doorway, more amused than anything else. Robby just chuckles and tosses him the other can he’d put on the coffee table, and Miguel catches it easily, like he’d expected it.

“You finally ready to go or what?” Robby asks him. 

Miguel rolls his eyes and smirks, “Hey it takes time to look this good, Keene.”

“Whatever you say man.” The teasing tone is so familiar to her, but the way he’s using it with Miguel is so strange that for a second she considers how likely it is that she’s on some candid camera show. 

For now, though, she decides to just go with it.

“Alright you two,” she laughs when they both turn to look at her in sync, “we gotta go grab dad and Mr. Lawrence before they somehow manage to get themselves kicked out of a hospital.”

Miguel stands up straight and grins, “Let’s do this,” he looks to Robby, “oh, and Keene,” then he smirks, and she knows that smirk only means trouble, “first one to the car gets shotgun.”

Robby, as it turns out is the one who ends up sitting shotgun in the car, due to the fact that Miguel had somehow forgotten that he’d need to lock his front door before they left. He pouts from his spot in the backseat, and she can’t help but laugh at the expression, and soon enough all of them are back to their easy comradery from last night, and the boys are bickering over what to play on the radio.

Before long though Miguel is leaning forward between them, even after repeated attempts from her to just _sit down and put a seatbelt on jeez_ , and elbowing Robby in the side, “So...” he drags out the word with a smirk, “Should we tell her?” Wait. What?

Robby is scowling half-heartedly, “Aww, dude, c’mon, I don’t wanna talk about this again.”

Oh but now she’s very intrigued, “Tell me what?”

Robby and Miguel share a _look_ and then Robby is rolling his eyes and groaning, “You’re the one who brought it up, Diaz. You tell her. This shit is awkward enough as it is for me.”

“Listen I know he’s like, your actual dad, but c’mon you really think this isn’t weird for me too? He dated my _mom_. I had to genuinely consider the possibility of Sensei stepdad for a hot minute, and this isn’t even that different,” Robby elbows him and Miguel sits back gracelessly in his seat, sticking his tongue out, “Fine be that way.”

“What the literal hell are you two talking about?” She snaps at them, and while Robby just sort of sinks down in his seat with a constipated look on his face, Miguel leans forward in his seat again and grins.

“So we think that your dad and Sensei Lawrence have a _thing_ for each other.” He sounds like the cat who caught the canary, and Robby lets out a long-suffering sigh.

She blinks, twice, three times.

“Oh,” she pauses, “is that it?”

Now _that_ certainly gets their attention, Miguel is stunned into silence, but Robby’s voice is in disbelief, “Wait, what do you mean _is that it?_?”

“I mean, from the way you were making it sound, I thought it was gonna be some earth-shattering revelation that you two had come up with,” She chuckles, “I already knew that.”

Honestly, she thinks it’s hilarious that the two of them have only just figured this out. But she doesn’t feel like embarrassing them too badly today.

“How did you know that?” Miguel seems to have finally found his voice.

She shrugs, smiling, “I’ve known about my dad’s thirty-plus year obsession for way longer than I’ve known either of you. He used to talk about him all the time, Mr. Miyagi would sometimes too, until my mom started getting really weird about it and he stopped bringing him up as much.”

“Oh... that,” Robby sits back in his seat, and he’s obviously trying to reconfigure something in his, “That makes sense actually.”

“What do you mean that makes sense?” Miguel practically screeches, eyes wide, “What part of that makes any sense?”

“My dad, when I was still a kid...” He trails off, shrugging, “He used to talk about Mr. LaRusso sometimes too. Well more like rant, I guess. It’s how I knew it’d probably piss him off if I started working at the dealership. He was like, basically all he talked about sometimes.”

The car is quiet for a tense second. It’s Miguel who pipes up first.

“So, like, your dad got kicked in the face once in the eighties and decided that that was the man he was gonna obsess over for the rest of his life huh?”

Sam almost swerves the car into the oncoming lane from how hard she starts laughing. The car is filled with it, she and Miguel the first to crack, but Robby isn’t far behind, and soon it’s echoing in the small space.

They’re still trying to calm down from their fit of laughter when they pull into the parking lot. The three of them shuffle quickly out of the car, making their way through the lobby and up the elevator.

They can hear her dad before they even enter the room.

“Oh come on this is ridiculous!”

Sam rolls her eyes when the boys snicker behind her, “Oh boy, I told you they were gonna find a way to get kicked out of a hospital.”

When they walk through the door the first thing she notices is Mr. Lawrence; he’s sitting on the edge of her dad’s bed, trying to stifle his laughter behind his hand; he’s still wearing the shirt from the night before, halfway buttoned so it’s still easy to see the bandages around his chest. A very exasperated nurse is standing by the foot of the bed, behind a wheelchair, “Mr. LaRusso, it’s standard hospital policy. We can not make you take the wheelchair down but you are seriously risking making your injury worse than it is.”  
Her dad is still laying down on his bed, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face, “I am _aware_ of the hospital policy. But I am perfectly capable of getting down to the car on crutches.”

“Daniel, man, seriously, just use the fucking wheelchair. It’s not a big deal.” Johnny’s still rough voice does little to hide his obvious fondness and amusement. He reaches around to grab one of his hands and uncrosses his arms in the process.

Her dad’s face softens somewhat, but he still sighs dramatically, “If it isn’t such a big deal, Johnny, then it should be perfectly fine for me to not use the damn wheelchair.”

“Bambi, you know you’re being a real drama queen right now?” Johnny’s rolling his eyes, but he’s still got that fond grin on his face, and he’s kind of hovering over him.

Her dad looks like he’s going to say something else but the nurse cuts him off, “Well Mr. LaRusso, we will have to discuss this later because it seems that you both have visitors.”

The two of them startle, Johnny immediately trying to sit up straight and wincing at the effort. The nurse sneaks out the door behind them.

“Hey Dad,” She aims for nonchalant, but she’s never really had the best poker face, knows a wide grin has broken over her face, and she hears Miguel snicker beside her, “Hi Mr. Lawrence. Are we interrupting?”

Mr. Lawrence flushes a deep scarlet all the way down to his chest, stuttering through excuses, “Well if the man would stop being such a fucking baby!” But her dad, for his part at least just flops back unceremoniously on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose in his fingers, before groaning out, “John. _Johnny_ , stop, they already know.”

That gets the man to come to a screeching halt, eyes as wide as saucers, and for a very brief second she thinks he actually looks terrified, so okay maybe it wasn’t a good idea to tease them about this quite yet. He very visibly gulps when she steps further into the room slowly, trying not to freak him out any more than he already obviously is.

“Mr. Lawrence,” she starts, gently taking his hands when she stands in front of him, “It’s okay. We aren’t upset about this.”

He really doesn’t look like he believes her, “You... you’re not?” His eyes shift to look over her shoulder at Robby and Miguel who have walked up behind her.

Robby sounds as sincere as she’s ever heard him when he says, “No, Dad, we’re not.”

“Oh.”

She smiles at him, and throws her arms around his shoulders, and he’s quicker to return it this time around. Then she shifts back and moves to hug her dad who’s moved to sit up, all quiet, nervous energy. Miguel and Robby move to do the same with his dad when she moves away to hop up on the other bed(which seems much closer than it was yesterday, but she decides not to say anything), and her dad gives her a grateful look.

The boys both come to sit on the bed with her, Miguel next to her and Robby on his other side closer to the foot of the bed. The silence that comes after that isn’t tense necessarily but Mr. Lawrence still seems a little wary about the whole thing.

“So we get to be in the wedding right?”

The room is filled with raucous laughter from the three of them, and it’s her dad’s turn to blush even as Mr. Lawrence buries his face in his hands, groaning loudly, “Diaz you are doing so many fucking pushups after this.” But eventually they’re joining in on the fun of it, and no one comments on the small smile on his face when her dad reaches over to thread his fingers through his own.

The room is significantly lighter after that, her and the boys gently(and not so gently sometimes) teasing them, and their dads give it back as good as they get, and it’s almost surprising how _unsurprisingly easy_ it is to just exist here, with them all, like they’d been doing this their whole lives, and hadn’t _very_ recently been part of an ongoing karate rivalry. If it wasn’t so great, it’d be jarring.

Eventually though, the very exhausted looking nurse comes back, and her dad is back to groaning because-

“I don’t need the damn wheelchair.” He grumbles, and sags into the bed. It’s honestly pretty hilarious to watch him basically throw a hissy fit over something that’d literally only be for about 5 minutes tops.

“Daddy, come on it’s not that bad. It’s only until we get back to the car.” She tries to gently coax him into agreeing. She thinks everyone here(including the nurse who just looks so very done with them) would very much approve of them getting out of this hospital as soon as possible.

Robby chuckles, “Yeah, c’mon Mr. L. Just get in the chair so we can get you out of here.”

They all go back and forth with this, everyone growing obviously less amused and more frustrated with her father’s stubbornness, until it seems like Mr. Lawrence’s patience finally runs out(from everything she’s heard about him, she had honestly thought he wouldn’t have lasted this long).

“Daniel,” His voice has a rough edge that kills her dad’s argument in his throat, and everyone turns to look at him, “I really, _really_ want to leave this hospital sometime today, so I fucking swear if you don’t get in the goddamn chair in the next 2 minutes I will pick your ass up out of that bed and throw you in it, ribs be damned.”

Her dad narrows his eyes at him, thinking, “You wouldn’t dare.” He doesn’t really sound convinced in his statement though. She isn’t very convinced either.

“Try me,” They stare at each other in tense silence for before, “fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-”

“Okay fine!” Mr. Lawrence smirks at him, victorious, “Hey no gloating, or I will change my mind.”

Johnny holds his hands up in surrender, but he’s still smirking, “I didn’t say a damn thing.”

If she’s being honest, she’s kind of impressed.

Johnny hops off the bed, wincing a little at the movement, and she’s suddenly very grateful that he didn’t have to make good on his threat. Robby is quick to his feet too, helping the nurse get her dad out of bed and into the chair. They look incredibly relieved when he offers to be the one to wheel him downstairs.

“Well in that case, since you’ve already done all of your outpatient paperwork, I’ll leave you to it. Just please return the chair to the lobby before you leave.” They dash out before anyone can reply.

There is minimal complaining from either man, outside some griping when they make their trek to the elevator. Miguel had very swiftly grabbed the crutches from his Sensei’s hands when he’d tried to carry them, and had only received an eyeroll and a swat to the back of his head for his efforts. Robby and Miguel helped him get his bearings on the crutches while she ran the oh so dreaded wheelchair back inside.

Well at least there _had_ been minimal complaining until Johnny realized he’d been expected to sit in the back, “Do any of you actually expect me to even be able to fit in the back?” To be fair to him, it was actually fairly small by SUV standards.

Robby rolled his eyes, “C’mon old man it’s not gonna be that bad.”

Mr. Lawrence only raises an eyebrow, “Alright first off how many people currently here can drive-” he stops Robby when he raises his hand, “ _legally_? He can’t drive because of the knee,” he gestures to her father, currently leaning against the car, “and he’s already gonna have to sit up front cuz he can’t bend the leg. So it’s just Ms. LaRusso and me. Now, unless Sam has something she’d like to say to everyone, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows how to get to the station from here.”

Now, she could have argued that it wouldn’t have been very hard to find it with GPS. It would have been pretty easy to argue actually. But, she also thinks the look of abject horror on both her dad’s and the boy’s faces, and the once again victorious smirk on Mr. Lawrence’s face when she shrugs and hands him the keys is incredibly funny.

Johnny easily climbs in the driver’s side and she slides into the backseat before anyone can protest.

She’s squished in between Robby and Miguel, and she’s outvoted on what they listen to on the radio, but she knows she made the right choice when she sees Mr. Lawrence reach over and grab her dad’s hand over the console.

The car ride to the police station doesn’t end up being that long at all. When Johnny insists, none so gently, that her dad stay in the car instead of climbing the stairs to the building on crutches, he only grudgingly agrees when she offers to stay with him. Robby gets out to follow him, and after a second's hesitation and a concerned look towards the two walking towards the building, Miguel climbs out of the car too, “I’m gonna go make sure Sensei doesn’t, like, punch a cop in the face or something.”

Her laughter dies in her throat when she sees an equally worried expression on her dad’s face, belatedly realizing that, yeah, Mr. Lawrence might actually do that. Which normally, she’s not really against, but she’d really like to get home in a timely fashion, and punching a cop in a police station is a really good way to not do that.

Journey plays low through the speakers when she leans forward in her seat and turns to her dad smiling, (not so) innocently, “So...”

Her dad groans in his seat, already knowing where this conversation was headed.

“... you and Mr. Lawrence huh?”

He gives her a withering look, “Sam, do we really have to talk about this?”

“Well yeah, duh,” She says like it’s obvious, and really, it should be, “you really thought I wasn’t gonna make you give me the details? You’ve been actually obsessed with him for like thirty years, insisting that you hated each other, and now you’re totally dating him. You’re gonna sit there and tell me you didn’t have a crush on him in high school.”

Her dad flushes, “I absolutely did _not_ have a crush on him, and even if I did it was the eighties! And we are not dating, for godssake, we aren’t teenagers, it’s significantly more complicated than that.”

“What’s so complicated about it? You like him, he _obviously_ likes you, and Robby says he was totally obsessed with you too.”

“Sam that isn’t the point- wait, what? Really?”

She smirks, “Yeah Robby was telling us in the car that his dad used to talk about you all the time when he was growing up.”

“Oh.”

She giggles, “He totally had a crush on you in high school too.”

She lets him sit and process all this new information for a few minutes, before she asks, cheshire cat smile on her face, “So you’re gonna ask him out, right?”

The look on his face is totally worth having to listen to eighties music.

When the guys show back up, looking no worse for wear, she and her dad share a collective sigh of relief. Robby is toting a duffel bag and has his skateboard in hand. He chucks them both in the trunk and climbs back in with a huff, “Well that was fucking stupid.”

Her dad half-heartedly calls out from the front seat, “Language.” and glares at Johnny when he snorts.

“They took _forever_ to even look for it, and then they were trying to convince Dad that they didn’t have it, which was complete bullshit cause the guy literally said that they’d cleaned out the place. Then finally some other guy comes back from break and is all like, ‘oh you mean the shit we picked up at the dojo?’ and just goes back and finds it immediately. I’m like 90% sure that one guy was gonna try and pawn my stuff.” He scowls and slumps down in his seat.

She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Well at least you got all of your things back right?”

He sighs, but his face does soften a bit, “Yeah I guess so,” then he shrugs, “that and Diaz didn’t have to try and stop Dad from punching a cop.”

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual all mistakes are my own


End file.
